


they say that things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow

by lanyon



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 17:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthdays, like love, are for children. She doesn’t know how old she is, much less the day on which she was born, and she is duly surprised when she walks into a random living room on a random floor of Stark Tower. She wonders that she’s grown so predictable or perhaps it is just that she will always find them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say that things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow

**Author's Note:**

> +Title from _Winter Song_ by Sara Bareilles  & Ingrid Michaelson.  
> +A warning, perhaps, that I play fast and loose with grammar (or, at least, the denotation of direct speech; I blame James Joyce).

Birthdays, like love, are for children. She doesn’t know how old she is, much less the day on which she was born, and she is duly surprised when she walks into a random living room on a random floor of Stark Tower. She wonders that she’s grown so predictable or perhaps it is just that she will always find them. 

Who does she find? Her team. They are her team, as much as they are Fury’s, or Cap’s. 

It is impossible to surprise the Widow, they say. 

I’m surprised, she replies. It’s almost the truth. Between James and Clint, they’d extrapolated and conspired and chose her birthday. It is appropriate, she supposes. It stands to reason that it would be the twenty-ninth of February. She wonders if that’s the day she came to the Red Room. The first day that James saw her; she was five or six, or maybe seven, and he was dead on the inside, with icy indifference to sobbing children. She didn’t cry, though. Her eyes had been dry when they met his cold gaze. 

It is different now. There is laughter. They do not sing _Happy Birthday_ ; instead, James and Clint sing _Killer Queen_ (yes, even Clint, and they thought he’d never smile again, much less laugh and extrapolate and conspire).

There is a cake. It is red velvet, Tony says, helpfully. He made it. Bruce clears his throat. Bruce helped, says Tony.

Everyone is sceptical but Bruce says that baking is like chemistry, but tastier. 

How do I cut it? asks Natasha. Her lips curve into a smile.

Don’t you have a knife? asks Tony. You always have knives.

I’m sure if we hold her upside down and shake, a half-dozen would fall out, says Clint.

Just try, says Natasha, and she is still smiling. She means it, too, for what a smile is worth in the company of soldiers and killers. James reaches into her boot and pulls out her favourite. There are no serrations and the sight of it in her hand has made grown men cry. 

The sight of it in her hand makes Tony cheer and it makes Steve sigh as he peels off a ten dollar bill and hands it to him. 

Every time, says Tony. 

Stop exploiting Steve’s better nature, says James and Steve smiles brightly. He dropped James, but he is forgiven. Natasha has caught James, and she has birthday cake and there is warm breath against the side of her neck.

Does Cap have a worse nature? asks Clint. 

Everyone is silent and the jury is out. 

The Captain once failed to put a dirty sock in a laundry hamper, says JARVIS, helpfully. 

You callous bastard, says Tony, rounding on Steve. 

 I can’t believe a computer ratted Cap out, says Clint.

I blame the programming, says Bucky. 

I blame the parents, says Bruce.

I blame society, says Steve because he is expected to.

How dare you? I’ll have you know that JARVIS is a masterpiece. Tony’s fingers tap against Steve’s knuckles and then they are palm to palm.

Natasha cuts through the white icing and it is crumbly and red beneath. She blinks, startled, and then James’ hand covers hers, and he feeds her a slice and nobody says, I do, but he is smiling at her, in that broad, happy way of his and his metal fingers are closed around her hip. 

Happy birthday, he whispers to her.

I think I was born in winter, she whispers back.

He smiles, and his eyes are warm. What follows winter, Natasha?

The spring, she says. The thaw. 

Then look around, James says. 

This is not a thaw, she says, when she looks at Clint and Tony and Steve and Bruce, when Hill and Fury arrive, when Darcy and Jane and Bobbi tumble in, bright-eyed and vivacious and they are not Russian but they are her team too. There is Clint, who was never going to smile again, offering cake to Bobbi and she looks at him with affection and that is more than most people have. Natasha knows this. 

She looks back at James.

This is a summer.


End file.
